


Patchwork

by hotlineblinganonymous



Series: Afterglow [1]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Angst and Humor, F/F, Hospitalization, Hurt/Comfort, Near Death Experiences, Self Confidence Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-27
Updated: 2016-03-27
Packaged: 2018-05-28 23:27:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6349954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotlineblinganonymous/pseuds/hotlineblinganonymous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shepard finally wakes up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Patchwork

The sound of the I.V dripping was maddening.

Miranda Lawson sat in the chair beside a bed, finger clutched tight enough to leave small, half-moon indents in her skin. Somehow, she felt this was all her fault. Maybe she should've talked her into sitting all of this saving the galaxy stuff out. It would've been a long shot, sure. Shepard never really knew how to turn down anyone that needed help, no matter how much she griped about it. The woman glanced up from her fingers and looked at her former commander. She looked so....frail. It was strange, really. This wasn't the first time Miranda had seen the woman in a hospital bed, hooked up to various tubes and cables. Covered in burns and scabbed over wounds. She had practically recreated her from scratch. However, this was the first time where witnessing it, surveying various wounds and bruises, hurt. In the past she would've been curious about it at the most, and mildly disinterested at the least.

In the past she had been growing stem cells in a petri dish to patch up any missing patches of skin. In the past Shepard was an experiment, an assignment, a means to an end. From time to time she hates herself for thinking of her that way. She had been just another bullet point to add to the impressive list of accomplishments to her name. Each telling of just how _perfect_ she was. How perfect her genes were.

Time to time, she wishes it could be that simple again, that she could be that unattached. She hates herself for it, but it if was simple she could wake up and stop reaching for a body that just wasn't there. She wishes for that almost as much as she wishes she could stop running. It wasn't like there was a point to it. She's been running herself ragged for months evading being reclaimed by Cerberus just to wind up here every goddamned night. Miranda Lawson leans against the starched white sheets and rubs her temples. "You could never just make this easy, could you Shepard." She states, and there she goes again, going back to how she acted when Shepard was just a project, a unconscious form that she could atone to past sins to without worrying about any potential judgement. A willing ear, if only due to the fact that it was unconscious. But there's more to it now, even if she keeps herself from thinking about it too much. "You just had to go and make me... feel...things." She finished lamely, glancing at the new scars that littered an otherwise perfect face. "And you go and fuck up a perfectly good face, do you _know_ how much overtime I had to clock to just sanding your cheekbones? Too much." The ex-Cerberus agent laughs softly, bone hollow and weary. "Now you can't even open your eyes. Diving into that beam was the stupidest idea you ever had."  _And falling in love with you was mine._ She thinks to herself, but some confessions are best left unsaid. And so that is how she leaves it. Silent, and heavy in the cool night air. The woman can feel herself falling apart at the seams when she looks at her former commander for too long, so instead she focuses on the ceiling. Listening to the quiet whir of the ventilation and the sound of the I.V. dripping. "I should've taken out an insurance policy on you, you know. With your track record it would've been the smart thing to do. At least then I could go back to penthouse rooms and not dwelling in basements and having to get rooms on...Omega." She shudders and lets her eyes drift back down to the other woman. Eyes flitting from freckle to freckle and she tries to forget a time when she would've pressed kisses, feather-light and teasing to each one just like she tries to deny the fact that she would do it again in an instant if given the chance. 

The I.V. keeps dripping.

Miranda Lawson gets up, even though every part of her argues to stay. She picks up the tactical cloak that Kasumi lent to her (or stole for her, really Miranda didn't care for the details anymore.) and disappears.

* * *

 

When Miranda reappears it's a month later and the door slides open for her just as easily as it had all the other times before. Cerberus had gotten too close to the hospital for her liking. Threatening her she could handle, but even a potential hint of a threat on Shepard had her steering clear of her usual haunt and leading them from one planet to another until she had gotten a message on her omnitool. 

 _"She's awake."_ There was no signature, the sender was restricted. But she was willing to bet the last remaining credits to her name (all ten of them.) on the fact that it was Liara.  Miranda had almost sent her a message back to apologize for wanting to crack her jaw when she had kissed Shepard but had decided that like many other things, it was probably best left unsaid. 

Of course, by the time she finally gets there. Shepard is asleep. And there's that damned I.V. dripping.

Miranda shrugs out of the cloak and hangs it on the back of the chair as she goes to her usual seat beside the bed. She scanned the woman and noticed, rather happily that a few of her wounds were healed completely. _Cerberus cybernetics at it's finest._ She thinks and for a moment a familiar sense of pride swells in her chest before she squashes it. The woman is still covered in scars and scabs. Bandaged in places that used to be too badly burned to risk being covered. Her fingers brush over a bone thin wrist and she feels herself frown, although she's not too sure whether it's the hospital's fault or if it was Shepard's. She had been almost dangerously thin when they last met, the effects of the war had taken a toll on her, even then. And to think she had still been conscious that time.

Conscious but just barely. She had no spark to her eyes then, not even back on Earth, her home planet. Not until Miranda had woke up beside her and suddenly there had been that warmth that Miranda hadn't seen since the Normandy. She looks down at the other woman and can feel her shoulders slump, although she isn't sure if it's because she's tired of being on the run, or tired of this. The two of them being nothing more than puppets for organizations that would've been at each other's throats for eternity if it hadn't been for one well timed bullet.

She supposes that she should still thank Shepard for that.

She should thank her for a lot of things.

Her fingers brush over a scarred cheekbone, ( _all those hours of overtime._ ) absentmindedly as she loses herself in her thoughts, she almost jumps out of her skin when she feels the other woman stir beneath her, almost. But not quite. She catches herself and when one bright green eye opens, and then another, she tries to maintain the aura of someone poised and in control. Even if her heart is pounding a steady tattoo of "she's awake, she's awake she's awake," somewhere in the base of her throat. 

"Well, look who it is." The voice is low, raspy and heavy with disuse. Shepard cringes as she tries to sit up and Miranda places a hand to her chest, pressing her back down gently. The ex-cerberus operative quickly removes her hand and Shepard smiles, even though she's sure she's reopening wounds by doing so. "You look as beautiful as always." It was true, in Shepard's eyes anyway. She was pale, thinner than Shepard thinks she's ever been and her eyes are slightly sunken, ringed with purple-black edges. She can feel her smile widen as Miranda snorts.

"Flatterer."

"I mean it." Shepard says, and she has that look in her eyes that she hadn't had since their Normandy days, all fuzzy warmth, unsaid emotions and just a small dash of mischief. It makes Miranda's stomach do flips and she swears at the butterflies that start deep in her gut. "And you don't look a day over thirty-eight." 

"I'm thirty-six, you absolute ass." Miranda replies thickly and she feels the back of her eyes prick, although she's not sure if it's fatigue or relief or...or something else. "And stop smiling damn it, I wasn't the one who rebuilt you this time. You'll wind up damaging something." It's meant to come out scolding, but instead it comes out with the same fuzzy warmth that Shepard has contained in her eyes, and she wonders for a moment if it is contagious. She presses her hand back to the Commander's cheek and rubs small circles with the pad of her thumb. When a bandaged hand covers hers she has to struggle to bite back a smile. "Although I'll admit, they did alright work." She allows her smile to escape when she feels the hand tug on her's, guiding her, more than pulling her onto the bed. She threads her fingers through red hair and she feels thin, bony arms wrap around her, pulling her in closer. The former XO's hand rests back, gingerly, on the other's chest and she feels a familiar heart beat just under the skin. "She's alive, she's alive, she's alive." 

"Almost as well as you Ms. Lawson?" The Commander asks, Miranda shakes her head and studies her, grin still stuck onto her face as she traces fingertips over her nose, her jaw, her lips. Shepard chuckles at that and pulls her closer, hiding a wince as she rests her weight on a damaged arm. "You were always so modest."

"It's a burden." Miranda shrugs and adds, "not everyone can be this perfect."

"Not everyone has the budget for that."

"Oh don't you start, the amount of credits spent on you could fund at least three small planets. Maybe even four." She sighs and adds, "It could certainly pay for an easy life, that's for sure." Shepard hums, leaning into Miranda's touch as she let's it rest back in her hair, kneading at the scalp. They lay like that for a while, Miranda almost forgetting that she's a marked woman. Shepard almost forgetting that she's a wounded one. Eventually though, Miranda moves herself closer to the Commander, her hand moving from her hair to dance along the other woman's ribs. It's silent for a long time, and Miranda's eyes start to drift shut, hand stilling on the other woman's ribs, and she gives herself that moment, with her eyes shut and Shepard's heart beating steadily to pretend that she won't have to run the moment the sun starts rising. That there aren't people out there that want them both dead. She gives herself that moment of safety.

And for the first time in a long time, in a hospital bed, under scratchy, cheap blankets, Miranda Lawson feels like she's home.

In the corner of the room, the I.V. keeps dripping.

**Author's Note:**

> *shyly shows everyone my OTP*  
> Goddammit Bioware. There was so much promise.  
> I haven't played the games since they came out so if there's any glaring inaccuracies please point them out to me.  
> Criticism is always welcome.


End file.
